Chapter Text
Looking back, Toph couldn’t fully explain her behavior when she first joined the group. Well, yes she could. Overbearing parents, the need to prove her independence, blah blah blah. But once she had that chat with Uncle Iroh, and discovered that maybe, possibly, it could be nice to work with Twinkletoes and Snoozles and (ugh) maybe even Sugar Queen, it turned out that she really liked it. And them.
Yes, sometimes Sweetness’s motherly nature irked Toph. Having someone tell her what she could and couldn’t do, no matter how well-meaning Toph’s feet told her they were, was a sharp reminder of her parents’ coddling. But there were good things about it too. Like going to the spa and terrorizing those girls on the bridge. Or trying to pull a scam together. And there was something very comforting about waking up to the smell of breakfast, and the sound of Katara humming an old water tribe song as she made it.
Which is why it’s such a shock when she wakes up to the smell of tea and a murmured tune about turtleducks.
Her feet hit the ground in an instant, and she instinctively sits up, ready to fight off any intruder that dares to break in to their camp and… cook breakfast for their group, or… y’know what, even the greatest earthbender in the world can be out of it when she first wakes up, okay?!
And it was not some breakfast-making intruder that sat by the campfire. No, the truth was even more shocking. His royal flaminess himself, Prince Zuko, was slicing an assortment of fruit and cautiously adding leaves to a pot of hot water.
“So, Sparky-pants,” Zuko jumps, spilling a few drops of the boiling hot not-quite-tea. Toph winces. “What… exactly are you doing?”
“Well, I’m uhhh…. Making breakfast?” The hesitance in his tone is the most suspicious thing Toph’s ever heard, yet according to her feet, he’s being utterly honest.
“Thanks for the clarification, Your Royal Flaminess, but I meant why are you making breakfast?”
“So that we can eat?” His heart is positively thundering. And really, Toph can’t blame him. The trip to learn how to dance from dragons may have at least shoved some of the others’ distrust under the rug—for those who don’t already trust him, that is—but a lot of the group is still wary of him.
Toph raises an eyebrow. “I meant that Katara is usually the one who makes breakfast.”
“Oh! I-I knew that. Well uh…. I was awake early cause, um.. firebender… sunrise… And I thought I should probably do something productive, and…” He mumbles something about extra sleep and unfair chore distribution, but even Toph’s excellent hearing can’t quite catch it. Before she has the chance to ask what he said, Aang bounces into the room with cries of “Yum! Mango!” and the rest of the gang slowly trickles in.
Toph feels Zuko’s heartbeat steady out as people thank him for the fruit and tea. Twinkletoes’ constant yattering about how much better at firebending he’s gotten can’t hurt either. The tea he’s made is really good (almost as good as his uncle’s), and perfectly compliments the fresh fruit. It’s not the breakfast Katara makes. But it’s still tasty, and maybe she’s a bit relieved to see everyone getting along well with Zuko. The guy could use a break.
That break ends when Sugar Queen storms into the room, furious at not having been woken up to cook. Her anger doubles when she sees that Zuko, of all people, has prepared the meal, and everyone was willing to eat it.
“Have you all lost your minds?! What if he poisoned it?!”
“Katara, I don’t think he—” Aang’s interjection cannot overpower Sweetness.
“And you,” she whirls around to face Zuko, shoving her face about an inch from his, “stay away from our food, and remember the warning I gave you.”
It doesn’t escape Toph’s notice that Sir Sparkiness’s heartbeat quickened when Katara walked into the room and skyrocketed when she got all up in his business, nor that he quietly sighed as she stomped away.
So that’s what he was muttering about.
This kind of thing happens much more often than Toph ever expected it to. Zuko regularly cooks meals, does laundry, and really any other chore that Sugar Queen would usually handle, and then gets yelled for either “doing it wrong” (even when Toph’s feet tell her it’s the exact same way Katara would do it, but ok Sweetness) or “trying to murder the entire camp.”
But His Royal Flaminess is incredibly persistent. And for a while, Toph thinks it may have something to do with the way his heart skips a beat whenever Sugar Queen walks into a room. And, frankly that’s at least part of it. Twinkletoes has tripped over those fluttery feet of his trying to impress Katara enough times for Toph to pick up on eager-to-impress-a-crush heartbeats.
But he also does this stuff when Sweetness can’t see. After all, everyone but Toph was fast asleep when The Duke had a nightmare and Sparky sang the turtleduck song until he was snoring again. Katara was off practicing waterbending when Aang ripped his pants, and Sparky-pants mended them for him. And Toph would immediately crush anybody who found out about how Zuko carried her all across camp after she stepped on a thorn, which he then removed without even needing Katara’s healing—which was super helpful too, because Sugar Queen had told her to avoid the bramble bushes, and she’d gone anyways, and really, really didn’t want an “I told you so.”
So fine, maybe Toph starts caring about Fire Pants, and maybe it starts to really bother her how badly his feelings are hurt by Sweetness’ sour disdain of him.
This leaves Toph with one option, and one option alone: point out how helpful Zuko’s been in a way that’s extremely embarrassing for the both of them. She gets her chance a day later when Zuko’s making stew for dinner.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?!”
“Making stew.” Instead of being shaky, Zuko’s voice is monotone, resigned to his fate of being yelled at.
“Like that?! I don’t think so. You’re stirring it wrong.” Sugar Queen shoves Zuko away from the pot.
“I was stirring it exactly the way you told me to last time,” he says, sitting up and meeting Katara’s glare head on. Sugar Queen’s eyes widen, and she opens her mouth to yell some more, but before she can start her tirade—
“Oooooooooh. Looks like Mom and Dad are fighting again.” Toph coos. The singsong voice sets it off perfectly, if she does say so herself (which, of course, she does).
“Toph!” The duo turns to face her with matching blushes. The Fire Prince and his burning heart are reduced to stammering, while Sugar Queen’s indignance only escalates.
But the yelling isn’t quite enough for the greatest earthbender in the world to miss the beat her heart skipped at the suggestion of her and Zuko as parents. So Toph just cackles.